


The Road

by SpaghettiCanActivist (orphan_account)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-02 15:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17266325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/SpaghettiCanActivist
Summary: One man, chased by shadowed light, two boys hungering for a home, and the final man searching for understanding among his knowledge.An AU where it's just dirt, and road, bituminous reflections, and four people wandering with only each other.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

  

 

_“Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire.”_

_-Cormac McCarthy_

 

 

 

 

 

 

           Chapter 1: God Willing

 

_“Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”_

 

 

There’s a whisper of wind, the dead dry sky bleached blue to perfection and destructive monotony. He tilts his head, he listens, he hears the heavy heat slapping against the ground, wave after wave of furious assault, abandoned love, to beg the ground back up to it. It’s old hat: that fly in the corner buzzing over a piece of Garula lard, the hole worn through the woven mat in his old convertible Wolseley which barely puts one mile in front of the other. No sympathy for the sun.

With a small soft sigh, lips pursing around those beads of sweat, lips dried and cracked, he opens his eyes and levies them against the wide vast landscape of jagged flat land which is pierced by a rising plateau to the north, a range of low lying rock scrabbling against sky and little vicious shrubs pushing out in a firm declaration against the death that is embodied in Leide.

“Ya gonna keep standing there?”

Gladiolus grunts, letting his eyes sift away the light and close.

“Got a problem with it old man?” He replies, sounding gruffer than he felt, softer than he meant to sound.

There is no response and the sun screams louder.

“Paw-paw!” That girl, her screech, her lovely lilting country accent.

Cid's just looking at Gladiolus.

“I’ll get the hunt, if that’s why you came over here, unless you just like harassing people.”

Cid waits, Gladiolus lets his eyes slide back open and pretends not to feel the man's look.

“Paw-paw, guy in the garage says his car is done up in a bad way, but he’s gone off saying he doesn’t think a girl should be doing anything with his car.”

Gladiolus, his last name put far away, his first even some hazy reflection of what was and is. He turns around, shrugging away the vastness for the isolation of just Hammerhead, just this small spot and just Cid Sophiar. Cindy is there behind Cid, plaid shirt rolled up to her biceps, ends rolled and knotted up against her ribs so her midriff shows, jeans tacky with oil, grease, dirt, a spot of cherry pop she’d been slurping.

“Tell ‘im I’ll kick his ass to Duscae, you do your job Cindy,” Cid throws his head around, grizzled jaw made up of stretched skin, old and leathery.

Cindy lets out a tut-tut, wipes a hand against her jeans, then she sniffs and eyes Gladiolus with wary curiosity.

“A’right, Paw-paw,” she answers, bouncing gait taking her back toward the garage.

Cid is peering through Gladiolus, blue eyes acting like they can see the world. Old man didn’t know anything, nothing, maybe everything.

“Mind the sabertusks.”

The wind whispers again and Gladiolus tilts his head, listens, hears the things he thought he’d forgotten. He’ll try again tomorrow.

  


The reapertails causing the bustle, the hustle, the Hammerhead grocer, restaurant owner, Takka to lose his business, are out south of Longwythe Peak. Cid had even said, voice slipping up and cracking and actually giving the damn he gives every day in the secret of his eyes, little girl --four or five-- had been ripped apart as fodder. Gladiolus hates, senseless because they’re beasts with no sentiment and even less understanding.

Damn chocobo station is out of service, the girl managing the stalls saying some flat thing about a nearby race, a sickness, some excuse. Gladiolus drives, then he lets his tires wander, slowing down and thwacking against the sleeper lines, right side wheel dragging up dust as it touches down with dirt.

Gladiolus drags himself out of the car and hops the guardrail, setting off at a slow pace across the desert. His large two-handed sword, a block of heavy steel, is slung across his back, his ever present companion, the weight of-. Forget, slap it away, slip it down and under against slivered, split skin. Breath a sigh of relief and start walking like it’s your first day under the same love jealous sun.

He’s just a few meters away, crouched low, the reapertails sunk low to the ground in the shade of some shrubbery, large black curved claws twitching spasmodically, black eyes lackluster with the languor of the fervorous ball of gas ahead seeping into them.

There’s soft footsteps --they think they’re soft-- and Gladiolus looks and sees a black clad, scrawny rat of black hair and pale skin turning pink. It’s a hallucination, the male incarnate of someone in his distant past, his sin of failure. It’s not though, it’s real, a boy with a pitiful revolver, ages old, and a small sabre tied against his black trousered waist with black twine. Black boots, red soled, and trying to sneak up to the reapertails.

Gladiolus lets a cuss word slip across his tongue, rest at his mouth and depart in silent aim at Cid for daring to let someone else see his bounty, for sending a child, who thinks he’s a man, to die. That or making it all fall into Gladiolus’ hands.

The boy takes aim, hand shaking, the barrel unsteady, and fires. The reapertails rear up, one of them whipping its tail, stinger raising and tossing aside the brush. The three creatures are moving out, looking for something to kill. Gladiolus can get drunk, light headed, woozy at the thought of drawing blood and making violence upon what is peace.

The boy breaks cover, he should’ve stayed back and gotten in a few more shots, and pulls out his sabre, gun being pushed into his side pants pocket. A reapertail rushes forward, stinger flashing with sunlight, reflecting the harsh anger of love from the un-soothed sun, and the boy feebly wields the sabre.

Gladiolus shuts his eyes, he breathes in dust layered air, he thinks of death and then steps out. Surprise is a bitter way to kill something which does not think of the past, the present and the future as some unified existence. Gladiolus relishes it.

The boy is holding his own, he’s hacked away the leg of a reapertail. Gladiolus turns to the third, he splits the chitinous shell, and it stridulates, noise short and final until it swells into the eternity that is Gladiolus not forgetting what he means to.

Gladiolus turns his eyes and gulps up the image of all three dead, the boy standing over a carcass, clutching a bleeding arm.

“Need a hand?” Gladiolus decides to be magnanimous, out under the sun, under the unending song.

The boy’s dark blue eyes flash with fury, he shakes his head and begins to stalk away.

Gladiolus says nothing, he’s beholden to nothing but his ghosts. He can’t help but watch the black figure disappear in the wagging haze, bleak form of symbolic death, another corpse in his mausoleum of memory.

 

“Potions, I-I think,” The voice is soft, a slight drawl which would be rudely impertinent if it weren’t quaking with lack of surety and an undercurrent of fear.

Gladiolus looks and sees that his corpse has pulled itself from the grave he watched it wander into. The boy looks younger in the harsh light of the store, inky blackness threatening to press in from the outside. Gladiolus pauses in the threshold and steps in by a shelf of Ebony, eyes on his Lazarus.

“And a Phoenix Down” the boy is looking intensely at Jasp, the attending shopkeeper.

“It’ll be a thousand gil.”

Gladiolus watches the calculation of desperation pass over the boy’s face.

“Just the potions." Is what is settled on.

The boy’s arm is wrapped in a dirty white strip of cloth, blood soaked through in an oval patch, the ends dancing like little white hands entertaining the macabre.

He turns. Eyes widen at Gladiolus’ presence, and then settle on a nervous disinterest. Gladiolus’ Lazarus steps out into the light of the gas station. Gladiolus takes a moment to step out after. Gladiolus notes the direction he steps.

Gladiolus is at Cid’s then, a few large steps that way, Cindy fuming at a truck that has a stubborn will to die. Cid is putting tools away, ready to close the garage. He sees Gladiolus and turns.

“Let the boy take the catch,” Cid states.

Gladiolus grunts and turns away. Morality won’t be pushed on him, nor grafted in his skin by old men, or crowned upon his head by fate. Still, it beguiles him into following the invisible path of Lazarus.

 

 

There isn’t even a tent pitched, just one sleeping bag filled with a blonde headed boy and a rough blanket that is empty of its owner. Instead Lazarus is kneeling by the blonde, a potion being maneuvered between the two. Gladiolus steps closer. He understands.

The blonde is flushed with fever, his body is trembling, his lips are parted and breaths pass in wheezes as if he is a chain smoker gasping through just one last paper cylinder of meaning and faith. Lazarus, as Gladiolus will now see him, is shaking as well. Reapertails are the silent stealers in the hours past their striking, a potion will do neither of them any good.

“That’s not gonna help,” Gladiolus says.

Lazarus spins, blue eyes hazed with the poison. He says nothing. Did Lazarus speak after rising; the veil of death lifted was he left dumb at the prospect of life’s only purpose stolen away so cruelly?

Gladiolus steps closer. Lazarus raises his sabre.

“We don’t have gil,” Lazarus supplies.

“Didn’t say I wanted it.”

There is silence and the boy adjusts his grip on his weapon.

“Your friend is gonna die.”

Lazarus grunts. Or maybe he says nothing but silence.

“Get packed,” Gladiolus demands.

The boy blinks. Gladiolus considers it all. He stoops, unzips the cheap, stained sleeping bag and reveals a boy around his Lazarus’ age. Another body to keep from being a corpse, another ghost he’ll keep from haunting him. He hitches the boy into his arms and stands up. He’d rented a trailer earlier. Lazarus follows, he weaves on his feet.

In the trailer, Gladiolus lays the boy down, sees the other half dead and lays him beside the other. Good gil goes out, spent on them, wasted, saved, invested, put into some worthless invaluable cause of life.

He leaves to gather the items left behind. The sleeping bag has the name ‘Prompto’ written in marker black on its tag. Gladiolus returns to the trailer, takes the saber from the gripped fist of Lazarus and reads the name ‘Noctis’.


	2. Peach Pit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ “Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire.”  _

_ -Cormac McCarthy _

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

Chapter 2: Peach Pit 

  
  


_ “Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave.” _

  
  
  
  


An outpost of Lucian, just before the decaying dirt of Leide. His glasses glint, they steal the pom pom pom of sunlight, of the sun’s wrathful fury of love. His hair glimmers as well, thieving the rays to be nested without attaining the purpose of demanding requitetition.  A book hangs from his gloved hand, nestled there by the alarming state of lack. There is a sleek custom modeled automobile resting in the shade of the gas station overhead. In his pocket there are its keys. In his other hand there is empty, and more of it; knowledge in the other, empty in this one.

He is looking for someone.

  
  
  
  
  


The other boy rose, cheeks now flushed with bright youthful, something. Gladiolus thinks the name of Prompto is appropriate, a pun of succinctness. Because the boy's mouth is turned up into a grin before he can compose himself, his blue blue eyes sparkle, they cast an image of everything going through him, a second by second photo frame film of emotions. Right now it's confusion, fear, curiosity, worry, uncertainty-. The kid's almost too much, Gladiolus will wither under such effulgent life, be outshone, outdone, taken over by it.

Lazarus is still in his tomb, the black haired boy an image of casket peace in his position on the fold out bed of the trailer.

“Wh-who?” The boy's brow creases, runs folds across his face, and Gladiolus sees the sheen of fading sickness still present.

Gladiolus says nothing and waits, leaned against the awkwardly small booth table smashed into the smoke pungent trailer.

“Noctis?” The boy named Prompto bleated out.

Black haired corpse, reanimated, now dead again, did not stir at his name being called. Prompto's eyes turn upon Gladiolus and they widen and gasp at mystery. Gladiolus says nothing.

“Who,” the boy sort of gasps, breaths still shortened by sickness, “who are you?”

“Gladio.”

Prompto’s eyes crease, lines of confusion implementing themselves across his forehead.

“You and your friend were almost dead, I helped.”

Gladio didn't used to hold brevity and reticence in his throat with such dearness, words had once flowed from him with jocular speed and graciousness. He'd been called friend once.

Gladio anticipated questions, the doomed 'why’ that he will never be able to answer. His anticipations are proved wrong.

“Thank you,” Prompt says, smiling with his whole face and eyes.

Gladio can say nothing, can do little for the worm inside him which twists him into grief and memory at those words. He nods his head in meager acceptance.

  
  
  
  


“Black hair, the other blonde.”

The woman, at the wide, brightly trinketed chasm of her car trunk which acts as a moving store, frowns, let's her teeth work her lip between them while her dirty brushed hands are planted on her hips in loose fists.

She’s young, but not so young. Her eyes are a nice light blue, hair like straw, face the plain square shape of all the locals. Heavy denim overalls, worn to a light blue by use, hang on her by her bare tanned shoulders. Her back shows and it is covered with the small grooves of hidden muscle.

Somehow she stands in a stark contrast to the dirty blonde haired man wearing black jeans, black leather cowboy boots with square tips, a black button up and a black jacket. His shiny silver buckle, an ornate thing encrusted with mother of pearl, shines like quicksilver and speeding moonlight. Everything about him screams impenetrable perfection, a dead statue of carved inhuman tragedy.

“Nah, can't say I have,” she says, nice and slow.

She brushes a hand over the stained bandana holding her hair back and shrugs.

“Sorry mister, ya might have better luck lookin’ elsewhere. Dunno ‘bout you, but every time I see a stranger round here they’re headed for Duscae and the wetlands, hunting land and some farming. Plenty of jobs at least, somethun’ ya can’t say ‘bout here.”

“Of course, Ma’am, I appreciate your assistance,” his accent gives a round ‘aww’ to the ma’am and a condescending formality to his tone.

“Oh ma’am! I don’t hear that one often enough,” she slaps her thigh, lets out a thin chuckle as his gravitas weighs and weighs till the human pours out of the conversation and is set alight by a fine drawn line of distinction.

Her mouth tightens, her eyes draw up tight as well and she slaps her hands together and brushes calloused palms in a smooth, practiced dance to rid herself of dirt, enmity, and care; a working person’s prayer to the god of life.

He’s already turned away, bespoke suit, bespoke man, bespoke human hospitality. She pities him, a man to always be apart.

  
  
  
  
  


“Why did you help us?”

He’s up, mere seconds of life, and he wastes his limited breath on distrust. Gladiolus doesn’t know whether he should be disappointed at the blatant and shared cynicism or praise him for being a step closer to death and therefore to life.

“You stole my bounty,” Gladiolus tosses out.

Prompto, the little blonde, looks afraid at this, he is still innocent. Gladiolus hates the spinning ball of responsibility which swells and grows in him at seeing that innocence. There is a desire to preserve it, to save, to immortalize it even as it dies. The other boy’s innocence has been warped and mutilated by something, Gladio finds kinship in that dark something.

“We don’t have any gil,” Noctis spits out, like this is all Gladiolus’ fault.

Venom, even as he wavers, health on a thread of recovery. The boy is a pale almost green, he’s a slight child sitting up straight pretending to be a man, black hair frizzed and a disgusting mat of dirt and sweat. This unangelic angel is haloed by the checkered threadbare curtains hung at the camper window, the smoke yellow walls trapped with acrid odour, and the bedding, which has a few holes, and is an old tack blanket that is scratchy as hell and a misshapen pillow.

“You think I don’t know that by now?” Gladiolus says, a brow raised and his back straightening.

He knows he is intimidating. The black haired boy is afraid, he’s terrified, but he is, with one glance at his friend, attempting a pitiful front of untouched indifference and animosity. Gladiolus is guilty.

“How old are you?” Gladiolus asks.

Noctis narrows his eyes, again still so angry and full of spitting fight, even when he is ready to flit away as a frail bird at the slightest disturbance. Death is wide eyed on his face and waiting for one small, mortal mistake. Gladiolus will not feed it.

“Fifteen, both of us,” Prompto hurries to answer, his sweetness, desire for peace, for something Gladiolus isn’t, to be birthed, succored and bloomed in the room.

“Gladio saved us Noct,” Prompto is looking at little Lazarus, eyes wide with sunshine mellow, imploring.

Noctis caves immediately, his shoulders slump to show how tired he really is, his eyes fall away from both Gladiolus and there and reality to shudder with the need of the fantastical idea of rest and peace. Then they harden with nearly hopeless resignation.

“What do you want?” He says softly, as if thinking and knowing that he is expected to give life and will over for his and more importantly his friend’s safety.

Gladiolus banishes the creature of sentiment that creeps through his veins on a mission to cauterize every point of bitter anger and despair. He ponders his words carefully.

“You two owe me, out here you earn money hunting. So the first thing I want is for you to learn how to hold that damn gun straight, a shaking hand is worthless.”

Prompto looks flustered, red cheeked with some flurry of emotion and grasping about for a foothold in understanding. Noctis is staring in confusion, too tired and sick to contemplate another kindness done, too weary to dig down deep for the inevitable ulteriority of Gladio.

“But sleep first, you’re no good half dead.”

  
  
  
  
  


There is a trail winding through the Callaegh steps, it passes by the Balouve Mines, a dark thought there which is better not brought to mind, and it climbs up until you are on small crags, not quite flat, and high enough so the shallow plain is wide open before you, omniscient sun burning overhead like Polyphemus in his murderous ardour for Galatea. 

The trail has been burned by the feet of hunters, desperate men, some of bravado, some of quiet greed and others of the lost kind, the ones who wander in heart and mind and take this wandering out on the world, the kind who look and look for something they are missing but will never find. Gladiolus has burned the trail as all those types of men at different times, he was a different man each time. Now he gingerly waves the flame of two boys, a entirely different man now, one who is leading and teaching. At least that is the undignified truth, one which he is reluctant, and still blind to.

The sun is hiding behind Longwythe peak, on its way up, today sobered by an eternity of failure, it is looking back and weeping before turning its grief to savage abuse against the poor land below it. Noctis, who Gladiolus’ serpent subconscious whispers the name Lazarus to, walks behind him, breath dull grunts. The other boy, Prompto, who Gladiolus openly thinks of as sunshine rebirthed for the pleasure of the living is also breathing from exertion, but they are keeping up.

It is the first day, the tender natal beginning of some new page in a something that is satirically called saga. Gladiolus does not recognize it, his bones feel it and they ache and tremble at the change, they try to tell him, but he’s never listened to them.

These boys, these children, these embryonic inchoate men will shoot a gun, they will mean it when they do, they will know it, and they will shoot straight and sure so that it is the one thing they can know as infallible before them, more consistent than the love screaming sunrise, more believable than the Six who gather the ants and humans in like.

They reach the top, a small faux mesa just for them, level rock that is like a small arena. The sun is at the end of its ascension and begins to shout forth from the peak of Longwythe. The screams echo and echo, they fill every bit of land in reach, and they pour out a new day of tractless yet ever the same furious ourania.

“You’ll be shooting at that,” Gladiolus says as he points to a small little budding group of cacti a good distance off.

“Get a blossom each.”

He sits, resting his heavy blade across his crossed legs, holding up the weight of his guilts, and waits for them to do so.


End file.
